Surveillance of a large area is typically carried out by aircraft flyovers and/or manned reconnaissance. However, this type of surveillance is costly, is not continuous, and can be dangerous when the area is either occupied by hostile forces or is environmentally hostile due to the presence of chemical, radiological or biological agents. Accordingly, it would be preferable for field surveillance to be carried out in an unmanned fashion by various “sensors” (e.g., cameras, acoustic sensors, temperature sensors, chemical/radiological/biological sensors, etc.) that can be placed/located in a field location.
In general, most situations will require a variety of different types of sensors in order to generate sufficient data for performance of complete surveillance. However, different types of sensors very often generate different data formats and protocols. Further, when a surveillance area is large, data collection issues arise when sensor cabling is required as such cabling becomes difficult or impossible. Even if a sensor is equipped with wireless transmission capabilities, transmission distances are relatively short (e.g., typically on the order of 1000-2000 feet) thereby rendering them useless when a large area must be reconnoitered.